to scream just a little.
Yeah, mostly it was the second thing.
Running up the stairs in a totally dignified and not scared of my own shadow kind of way let me release a little of that pent up panic, let my body burn while my mind rolled out the fear carpet and took a nice leisurely stroll.
Whatever those watercolor people were-they had been a lot harder to get rid of this time. And despite not wanting to tell Zayvion, I was sure-positive-I had seen my father in the street. I was positive I had heard him.
He had said something about gates opening and seeking death.
Why did ghosts have to be so spooky? I mean, it had been a while since my dad and I had spoken to each other. He could have talked about the weather, asked me how my job was going, or maybe explained why even though he was dead he still felt the need to meddle in my life.
Honestly, he could have just told me why he wanted me to seek the dead and what seeking the dead meant.
I made it to my apartment door. All the other doors down the hall were closed, including the one where my newest neighbor, the creepy doctor from the coffee shop, lived. I unlocked my door, and then, because I was feeling more than a little jumpy, I drew a glyph to enhance my senses of hearing and smell, set a Disbursement this time (oh, hells, I hadn’t been setting Disbursements when we faced the watercolor people; I was so going to have magic pound that price out of me), and leaned close to my door to listen for any movement, any breathing beyond it. I sniffed and got only a noseful of the smells I am used to in my building, along with the slight smell of almonds that I decided must be my new neighbor.
A motion at the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked down the hall. I thought, for just a second, that someone had been standing there. Even though I had not enhanced my sight with magic, the pale green and blue tremor of fog-watercolor fog-at the end of the hallway near the head of the stairwell was enough for me to let go of magic.
The hall was just a hall again. No fog. No movement. No sound.
And nothing seemed to be moving in my apartment either.
I walked in, flipped the lights on, locked the door behind me, and strode through the entire place, just to make sure I was alone.
And I was.
I wanted a shower, but that would mean getting naked in my bathroom again, and as good as hot water sounded, I just didn’t have it in me to get all naked and vulnerable yet.
Last time I was in that bathroom, my dead father had seen me, touched me.
“C’mon, Allie,” I said out loud. “Get over it. You’ve gotten over every other screwed-up thing that has happened to you.”
Maybe I needed a cat. Or a dog. Something that would sense if there were anything out of the ordinary going on in my apartment. But a cat or dog would take time to care for, and I barely made time to take care of myself.
Maybe something smaller that needed fewer walks in the park and less one-on-one time. A goldfish? How about a ghost-sniffing hamster?
Ha.
I took off my coat, hung it on the hook behind the door, and decided I could stall the whole get-naked thing while doing something useful. I pulled out my notebook.
I wrote down everything that had happened today-the bus ride with Trager, the visit with Love and Payne, Stotts and his secret magic police, the Hounding job I’d go on tonight, Pike and the angry young Anthony, and of course the watercolor people, magical disappearing Life and Death glyphs, Grant’s opera tickets, my re-date with Violet for breakfast tomorrow, my dad’s empty grave, his appearance in the intersection, the encounter with the watercolor people, and the surprisingly powerful Mr. Jones. I noted that I was going to a Hound meeting and that I had a dinner date with Zayvion, who had said there were magic users out there, watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake. And that the price for that mistake might well be my death.
Listed like that, my day was shaping up fan-damntastic.
I pulled off my knit hat, dropped it on the half wall between my entryway and kitchen, and scratched at my wet, itchy head. I had delayed it as long as I could. Time to shower. I picked up a candle I had left there on the half wall and stopped in the living room to light it.
A headache was looming, pressing at the back of my skull, not bad yet, but I knew in an hour or two, it would probably be a migraine.
“Disbursements, Allie,” I said out loud, trying to fill the emptiness of my apartment with my voice. “Why do you always forget to set Disbursements? You are such an idiot sometimes.”
I set the candle on the edge of the sink and left the door open. If the lights went out again, I wanted something to see by and a clear escape route. I took a deep breath and pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing but my empty shower. Good. I turned on the shower to give the water time to warm up. I undressed and kept glancing out at the hallway and peering at the corners of the bathroom.
I tossed my clothes in the hamper and checked myself for bruises and cuts in the full-length mirror standing next to the hamper.
No cuts, which was great. But the site where Trager had shoved the needle in my thigh was a hard, sore, hand-sized lump. A bruise spread out in thin tendrils that looked more like a broken spider web than a bruise. A glyph? I ran my fingers over it carefully and didn’t sense any magic left in it. But, yes, it was a glyph. Blood magic, though not any kind I was aware of. It had to be the thing that had made me feel so dizzy after he had stabbed me.
I swore.
But the glyph wasn’t the only new mark I carried. There were four dark red circles down my neck, a lot more on my left shoulder, and several on the outside of my hips, thighs, stomach, and what I could see of my back. They looked like finger-bruises, only they weren’t the right color for bruises. I gently rubbed the marks on my left shoulder.
Ouch.
Sticky moisture clung to my fingertips. Those red spots hurt. I wasn’t exactly bleeding, but I was sort of weeping fluid. The marks burned like someone had peeled my skin off. I touched the ones on my neck more carefully. Same thing-raw and painful.
I didn’t think Trager could have caused these marks. I would have known if he touched me like that, no matter how glyphed and dizzy I was.
No, I knew where I must have gotten them from-the watercolor people touching me outside Get Mugged. I had felt light-headed after that-drained and sort of sunburned. And these were the marks left behind from their attack.
I didn’t have any Band-Aids.
I wasn’t even sure I had any painkillers in the house.
I bet this was going to sting like hell in the shower.
I could do this. I could get in the shower, wash off despite being afraid my dead dad was going to show up again, and despite the pain it might cause my new wounds.
I stepped in the shower and did not pull the curtain closed. So what if I got a little water on the floor? It probably needed to be mopped anyway. With the curtain open I had a better chance at that clear escape route.
The water hit my shoulders, and sure enough, it stung like mad.
Fabulous.
So instead of taking a nice relaxing soak, I shivered in the heat of the water and made it quick. I washed my hair with shampoo that stung, then rubbed soap that stung over my skin, and patted myself dry, which also stung.
Not that I was bitter about it or anything.
I got out of the shower, wrapped the towel around me, and brushed out my hair, tucking it behind my ears. Then I opened my medicine cabinet. That lingering headache was moving in, sinking down into the back of my head and squeezing at my temples. All I had in the medicine cabinet were some cold pills, cotton swabs, a bottle of
